A Familiar Tune

A Familiar Tune...



Somebody shoves you from behind. You turn stiffly, a retort at your tongue, your fist curling in your pocket, only to be greeted by your own father, who is staring at you pointedly.

A quick glance around him reveals a gathering queue of people, all looking around impatiently trying to find the source of the holdup. You turn; take a few steps before locating your designated seat, reluctantly lowering yourself into it but with the majesty and grace of a monarch. The rest of your family joins you; your mother throws you a steely glare, your younger brother bounding into his seat, an amused look plastered on his face clashing with the rage painted across your own face. Lastly, your father who lunges for his seat, clutching the armrest as if he was about to fly the plane himself, his face lit with comical enthusiasm, eyes glowing with child-like wonder. 



The plane begins to taxi and your family breaks into feverish conversation. Your mother tries to draw you into the discussion but you continue to stare firmly out the window. She speaks to you directly, uttering your name multiple times, but gives up when you snap your headphones on, cranking up the music.

The plane rolls down the runway, the engines roar and surges forward, pushing you deeper into your seat. Finally, the nose tilts upwards, and you feel your stomach actually drop a few centimeters. Your entire body is fighting the mighty forces of the plane, trying to keep you on familiar ground. But, with a mighty lurch, you feel yourself lift-off, away from Australia and to your strange and foreign destination.



Taiwan.







A light bump makes you regain your senses. The teacher is staring at you intently, almost as if your conspicuous lack of concentration is something never seen in her 30-odd years of teaching. You quickly identify the source of the bump. One of your Taiwanese classmates is at your eye-level, closely watching you like a doctor examining a patient. She looks at you carefully, smiles thoughtfully and with brief nod to the teacher, and returns to her seat. You look around the classroom barely moving your head, and the rest of the students, sensing your self-consciousness, quickly turn their concentration back to the whiteboard.  The teacher notices that you are paying attention and asks you a question in Mandarin. You punch in what you hope is the correct spelling of what she said into a little portable translator. With a pleasant tone, the screen flashes with English text. You stare at the screen, stumped. “How the heck am I supposed to know this?” you think to yourself. You stammer an answer to the teacher an attempt to draw attention away from yourself. She smiles at you and nods slowly, verifying your answer. You try not to look at the few students that have turned and looked at you with polite surprise at your response. Indeed some of them are positively beaming, enthusiastically encouraging your efforts with vigorous nods and silent double thumb ups.

As they turn away the bell for the next class rings, and all the students are packing up and merging out the door with courteous nods and muttering of zàijiàn. Goodbye.



You stand up, fuming. Why do these kids treat me like a child? They can’t even speak English properly!  You haul yourself to your feet and shove your seat under your desk. You shoulder your satchel and make a beeline from the back of the classroom to the door.

You jog down the hallway, not wanting to be late to any more classes in just the first few days. Everyone mechanically moves aside for you, some waving and smiling, which only seems to enrage you even more, so you speed up. In your haste a book dislodges itself from your arms and falls to the ground, only to be swooped on by helpful students. Someone you don’t recognize hands you your textbook back with a slight nod, and walks off. You get to your locker and cram everything you don’t need in there. Your timetable shows you have music now. And you’re late.

You pull out your guitar and slam the door shut, stepping briskly down the hallway, swinging your guitar onto your back. Even though you haven’t had music with them yet, you just know that your going to be absolutely rubbish compared to the rest of the class; like just about every single other subject you’ve had with them.



You reach the soundproofed classroom with little time to spare. All your classmates are already there with headsets, tuning various instruments. The music teacher ushers you to a corner, and you join two other students, a girl who is playing drums, and a boy strumming on bass guitar. Someone thoughtfully hands you an ear piece so that you can hear your group over everybody else.



Everybody begins to play, and even though you can see them playing, you can’t hear them. Your group hasn’t started yet. The bassist still needs to get tuned. Knowing that only you can hear your music, you begin to play a familiar tune absent mindedly. You start slowly; playing rich, easy chords and dropping in a few single notes every now and then. You register that you haven’t lost your skills, and move onto a song with a good beat, and a catchy melody.

Slowly, you hear a bass guitar join in, and you realize your guitar is rigged so that everyone in your trio can hear it. The bassist looks at you with a creeping smile and blinks once, signifying that he’s in. You gradually increase your tempo, playing louder, faster until you get the exact speed of the original song.

The drummer begins a simple beat to accompany you and your bassist, tapping lightly, almost as if she is hesitant to join. But, you turn and look at her, a grin growing on your face, and nod your head vigorously a couple of times to say, let’s do this. And she does, tossing her drumsticks briefly into the air, while kicking on the bass drum rapidly before reaching out in a fluid motion, catching the sticks again and leading into a heavy and complex drum pattern that has both a rhythm and a beat.

You take control, realizing your group’s potential, and hold up a hand to halt them before moving into the opening bars of one of your favorite songs, hoping they recognize it. They pause briefly, before registering the song, and rip open with an improvised accompaniment, faster and fiercer than the original. You respond by dropping in a few custom notes of your own, and the whole composition falls into place with little error. You just start thinking that this might be a class you could do well in when movement nearby makes you look up. You see your whole class watching you three, grinning broadly, keeping to the beat, or else mouthing the words to the song, clearly impressed. The teacher is also smiling, and points to a switch on the wall indicating that your groups sound is live.

You begin to feel under the spotlight again, but you don’t mind knowing that it’s your skill that has caught they’re attention, not the fact that you need help. You end the song slowly, and take off your earpiece, and your teacher is gesturing towards you and explaining something in mandarin to the rest of the class. You take the time to finally meet the members of your group.



The girl smiles and you recognize her from your previous class. She introduces the other boy and herself to you in broken English, but it’s enough for you. You pull out your translator and tell them in Mandarin smiling;

“You wanna get lunch after this?”



And to your great surprise the other boy who seemed shy at first replies in clear, fluent English;

“Sure, You like Pizza?”